A Battle in Arkansas

03.07.13 - Yesterday, a legislature of
extremists in Arkansas ignored the governor, ignored broad national support for
the right to abortion, ignored the United States Supreme Court, ignored logic,
and, most importantly, ignored a woman’s human right to make deeply personal
decisions about her reproductive health care and her future. The cumulative
effect of all this ignorance is the most extreme ban on abortion in the U.S.,
within the first trimester of pregnancy, at 12 weeks.

The anti-choice fervor of politicians
wouldn’t be possible without support from the people they represent. That’s why
the director of the only clinic that provides surgical abortion in the state,
whom we’ll call Sam, asked us to keep her name anonymous, for her protection
and that of her staff’s.

The clinic is not far from the
headquarters of one of the most hostile anti-choice groups in the country,
which has made a practice of targeting Sam’s clinic. Last year, she and the
doctor she works with found that their home neighborhoods had been flooded with
thousands of offensive fliers, publishing their pictures and personal
information in an effort to shame them out of delivering reproductive health
care. Her concern about drawing attention is understandable.

That doesn’t mean she’s not
committed to her vocation. “If not me, then who?” says Sam. She began this work
13 years ago and has seen more than her share of harassment. When she first
considered entering the field, she says, “I was surprised how many people would
not take this job.” She didn’t say “No” because she knew her work was
important.

Naturally, Sam is worried about her
future patients. The ban will force women already struggling under tough
economic circumstances to travel hundreds of extra miles to a neighboring state
to get the constitutionally protected health care to which they have a right. Or
not.

“If patients can’t travel these
distances,” because of monetary reasons or difficulty getting time free from a
job, says Sam, “they will resort to unsafe measures.”

As states continue to erode access
to abortion care—or try to abolish it altogether—more and more women will find
themselves asking what they are willing to do to get an abortion. And there is
little doubt that some of them will resort to dangerous methods beyond the
safety of a doctor’s office or clinic—methods that we believed were made
obsolete by Roe v. Wade. Tragic consequences will certainly follow.

The Center for Reproductive Rights and
the ACLU will fight this offensive law to the end to make sure that women in
Arkansas and the surrounding states have access to the safest, high-quality
reproductive health care, a right that is protected by the U.S. Constitution.